“No.” I say it with import. “Thank you.”
I hang up the phone and collapse on the couch and relay to Jeffrey what I was told and when we can see her and when we can bring her home.
He looks at me, not quite knowing what to say. “I guess we have a wedding to attend.”
I’m Afraid There’s No Denyin’/I’m Just a Dandy-Lion
EIGHT TIMES I WAS COWARDLY
1 When I was five and my father told me to walk in a more masculine way and I was so immediately overcome with shame that I did.
2 That time in the seventh grade when this popular kid with a French last name called me a faggot and instead of standing up for myself I thought of how faggot would sound in French (fag-oh) while wishing for the floor to swallow me whole.
3 When my parents divorced and people asked me about it and I pretended I was glad.
4 When this guy in high school performed oral sex on me and I told him afterward that it was not a big deal because even though he might be gay, I was comfortable with my heterosexuality.
5 Deciding not to major in creative writing because I thought that the broader and blander “communications” was the safer degree.
6 When I ended one relationship by becoming so distant and cold that after months of trying to reach me and discover what was wrong, he was left with no choice but to break up with me.
7 When I didn’t immediately confront Jeffrey about the text message I’d seen.
8 Every time I don’t tell my mother that I love her because I’m afraid she won’t say it back.
AND ONE TIME I HAD COURAGE
1 When I left Los Angeles for my sister’s wedding, leaving Lily behind, boarded, in recovery, trusting her to heal.
The Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar
I watch the low morning sun glimmer off the water as we take off over the Pacific; it’s a short flight to San Francisco and we’re still getting in on New Year’s Day as planned. I ask the flight attendant for a ginger ale to pop an old pill I found in the bathroom drawer (which I’m hoping is Valium, but is probably Vicodin), otherwise I don’t say a word. I’m grateful for my window seat. Normally I’m stuck in the middle, as Jeffrey refuses to sit anywhere but the aisle, but the flight to San Francisco is a smaller plane with only two seats in each row on either side of the walkway. If nothing else, I can stare out at the view below and not have to make eye contact with anyone. Eye contact is dangerous. Eye contact is a trigger.
When we land and I’m able to turn on my phone, I have two missed calls. The first is from Meredith, to see if we made our flight, and the second is the animal hospital calling to say that Lily has made it through the night and continues to exhibit good vitals. I listen to the second message four times for any hint that they are lying to me or glossing over an unpleasant truth, but I can’t glean anything untoward and I end up not calling them back.
Meredith is waiting for us at baggage claim. She greets me with a hug, which I collapse into.
“You okay?” she whispers in my ear.
“Okay adjacent.” I can be matter-of-fact with her, even today. We’re only eighteen months apart, and while I sometimes joke that my first eighteen months were the best of my life, it’s just that—a joke. “Did you call Mom?”
“We’re eloping. Okay? If we invited everyone and made a big to-do it would be a wedding.”
I don’t know why there’s a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach about this, but there is. Is Mom “everyone”? I tend to obsess over the ways in which our mother is like every other mother—and all of the ways that she isn’t. “Okay.” It’s Meredith’s decision.
“But I’m glad you’re here!”
She and Franklin and Jeffrey and I manage lunch at a noodle house in Chinatown and check into our room at the Fairmont Hotel before I can’t hold it inside any longer.
“I. Need. A. Drink.”
It’s almost five o’clock (if the give-or-take is three hours), and so we head down to the bar in the lobby. Some asshole is playing annoyingly plinky ragtime on a grand piano, but my aggravation doesn’t trump my thirst so I order a double vodka on the rocks. Meredith agrees to an impromptu bachelorette party, partly at my urging (a bachelorette party sounds like a good excuse to drink), as long as she doesn’t have to wear a tiara or carry a penis whistle or anything like that. I apologize to Franklin (he’s not invited) and I call my friend Aaron, who now lives in San Francisco and who Meredith knows from years ago when we all lived in Maine. He agrees to join us for the revelry. Three gay men and a bride.
When Aaron arrives he’s as handsome as ever (for some reason this is comforting—the beauty in life) and I fill him in on the Lily situation and the impromptu nature of both the wedding and this makeshift party.
“We all need some celebration and some fun,” I say. The lobby bar is not fun.